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FAITH AND PATIENCE. 



SERMON FOR THE TIMES, 



Rey. WILLIAM P. BREED. 



PREACHED IN THE 



mim 3imm 3imt ^^^i^imm mmtU, ^lillmUiMu, 



Thanksgiving morning, November 27, 1862. 
Repeated, by request, February 8, 1863. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

JOHN ALEXANDER, PRINTER, 52 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, 

1863. 



,3 



Philadelphia, February 9th, 1863. 
Reverend and Dear Sir : 

Your discourse of last evening upon the " Spirit of 
Christian Patriotism," appears to us so eminently adapted to supply a pressing 
want in the present condition of our beloved country, and calculated as it is 
to promote that pm-e spirit of nationality so essential under God, to the sus- 
taining of the best of Governments, that we cannot allow the opportunity to 
pass without endeavoring to give a more extended publicity to the sentiments 
which you have so happily embodied therein. 

Permit us therefore to request that the manuscript may be placed at our dis- 
posal for publication, and oblige 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servants, 

Henry D. Sherrerd, H. D. Maxwell, 

Morris Patterson, Samuel A. Lewis, 

James Imbrie, .Jr., John B. Austin, 

D. L. Collier, J. E. Gould, 

George Junkin, Jr., G. S. Benson, 

Charles 0. Abbey, Claudius B. Linn, 

William L. Mactier, Albert F. Damon, 

William E. Schenck, A. W. Little, 

WiNTHROP Tappan, C. H. Grant. 
To the Rev. William P. Breed, 

Pastor of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church. 



To H. D. Sherrerd, George Junkin, Jr. and others. 

Gentlemen : 

Gratification at your approval of the sentiments of the 
discourse, for which you so kindly ask, forbids delay in acceding to your re- 
quest. Our smitten Government needs, and most righteously claims the sym- 
pathy, forbearance, and generous, earnest support of every citizen over whom 
its starry symbol waves, and it will be the pride and joy of our children, and 
our children's children, that it had ours in this, the day of its trial. Our ship 
is at sea in an angry storm, and her only course to the port of safety and 
peace, lies over the submerged moutain-tops of the Rebellion. May the God of 
Nations speedily sink those mountains, and summon us to cast anchor in that 
port ! Very respectfully and truly yours, 

W. P. BREED. 
Philadelphia, February 10, 18G3. 



SERMON. 



Isaiah 28: 16. — " He that believetii shall not make haste." 

Isaiah prophesied during some of the best, and some 
of the worst periods of Jewish history. It is not sur- 
prising therefore that his writings should reflect his 
times. Accordingly we find them, as we sometimes 
find the skies, piled with tremendous masses of angry 
cloud, but broken here and there with patches of blue, 
so pure and rich, as to reassure every beholder of the 
necessary evanescence of the storm, and of the certainty 
of the returning calm. 

Here are some specimens of these clouds, " Behold 
the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, 
and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the 
inhabitants thereof." " The earth mourneth and fadeth 
away, the world languisheth and fadeth away." " In 
the city is left desolation and the gate is smitten with 
destruction." 

Now look through the openings in these clouds, and 
see how rich a blue lies beyond. " Behold I lay in 
Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious 
corner stone, a sure foundation." 



In other words, these clouds that enshroud Zion, and 
fill the hearts of the timid and unbelieving with dismay, 
are only the dust of Jehovah's feet as he comes to lay 
in Zion that " precious corner stone." 

Let this truth take fast hold of the mind, and what 
will be the effect? "He that believeth" it "will not 
make haste." He will not fret with impatience at the 
tardiness of divine providence, for when God begins to 
build, the cost has been counted, and the work will 
assuredly be completed. 

The lesson here indicated, is a lesson for all time — a 
lesson for individuals and for nations. So long as provi- 
dential surprises continue ; so long as calms vanish in 
storms ; so long as untimely frosts make choice human 
interests wilt and die ; so long as terrestrial Vesuvius's 
build in one night, their awful mausolea over our 
Herculaneums and Pompeiis, so long will it be needful 
to con and re-con, to recite and re-recite the lesson : 
" He that believeth shall not make haste." It is the 
lesson of Patience founded on Faith. It is to this 
lesson we now invite the Christian Patriot — a calm, 
resolute, persistent patience, grounded upon a profound, 



intelligent faith. 



I._FAITH. 



1. Above all, Faith in God — as He moves on in His 
ever-developing purpose to lay in Zion that cornerstone, 
and erect thereon the edifice of Messianic glory. Be 



always sure that God is working to this end. His 
footfall is heard among the nations. The sound of his 
going is heard in human hearts. The world is now 
impressed with a mysterious sense of his presence. 

And he is in all this great national work that so 
engrosses our thoughts and hearts, and in it to compel a 
crystalization of events around his own ideas. Let Him 
work, and let Unbelief tremble and Faith rejoice wdiile 
he works ! 

2. Next to this higher faith, let us retain faith in our 
government and in our cause. 

To this end, it were well that we now and then close 
our ears to the noise of the chariot-wheels as we are 
borne along, and our eyes to the blinding dust, and 
bethink ourselves of our nation's origin and history, and 
the underlying, pervading and all-controlling principles 
of our government, and ask what there is in them to 
weaken the faith of the Christian patriot, or startle him 
with the suspicion that faith in them, is inconsistent 
with faith in God. 

The seeds out of which the nation grew, were swept 
from plants of godliness on European shores, and sown 
on these, by the merciless blasts of religious persecution. 

And what treatment has religion received at the 
hands of our government? That government, be it 
remembered, has never raised the rod of religious 
pesecution. It has never passed a law to constrain the 
conscience. It has left each man where God leaves 



liim, individually responsible to Himself, for his reli- 
gious opinions and his worship. As God says, so it 
says — " He that heareth let him hear, he that forbeareth 
let him forbear." The absurdities and iniquities of 
church alliance with, and of consequence, subjection to 
the state, have never been sought by her. 

But not only has our Government refrained from 
laying violent hands upon our Religion, she has smiled 
upon it in all kindness, and under her segis we have 
grown up a Christian nation. The great Conventions, 
assembled for the nomination of candidates for the 
Presidency, have been in most cases opened with prayer 
to the Triune God. The President elect takes his oath 
of office upon the Word of God. The sessions of our 
Houses of Congress are opened with prayer. The 
Christian Sabbath is in many ways distinctly recog- 
nized. Our legislations, so far as it has borne at all 
upon religion, has always been Christian in its character. 
Again and again has the voice of our National Execu- 
tive been heard, calling us to thanksgiving for blessings, 
or to lamentations for, and confessions of sins. In our 
land. Gospel institutions have sprung up like willows 
by the water-courses. This day we see an army of five 
millions of communicants, enrolled under the banner of 
evangelical religion, and every Sabbath's sun, looks 
down upon some four millions of children in Christian 
Sabbath schools, grouped around more than four hun- 
dred thousand Sabbath school teachers. Our land fur- 



nishes a home for thirty thousand, or thirty-five thou- 
sand ministers of the Gospel, averaging more than 
one for every thousand of our population, who preach 
with more or less regularity, in some sixty thousand 
houses of worship of various classes. Bible societies, 
tract societies, colporteur agencies and other societies, 
together with voluntary contributions of some ten 
millions of dollars annually for religious purposes, make 
up a world of hallowed activities, that set the broad seal 
of Christianity upon our national character, so plain 
that he may read who runs. 

It is abundantly manifest therefore, that our Govern- 
ment sheds no blighting influence upon the interests of 
religion. 

But America's greatest statesman, the Hon. Daniel 
Webster, goes even further than this. He declares 
Christianity to be ''a part of the law of the land." 
The church edifices of all denominations, he adds — 
" The consecrated graveyards and their tombstones and 
epitaphs, the silent vaults and their mouldering con- 
tents, all affirm it. The generations gone before speak 
it — we feel it. All, all proclaim that Christianity, 
general, tolerant Christianity ; Christianity independent 
of sect and party, is the law of the land." 

But we must further ask how far this Government 
has discharged the legitimate duties, and reached the 
legitimate results of governmental sway? If it has 



8 

here made signal failure, let it sink to merited ruin and 
oblivion. On this point we will cite into court, an un- 
ceptionable witness — the Vice-President of the Rebellion. 
And though his voice now comes to us over a hecatomb 
of more than two hundred thousand men, slain in mur- 
derous aggression upon this government, his words shall 
stand for ever as an eloquent vindication of our resist- 
ance to that aggression. 

Hardly more than two years ago, in the capital of his 
own noble, though now temporarily erring State, he 
spoke as follows : " That this government of our fathers, 
with all its defects, comes nearer the objects of all good 
governments, than any other on the face of the earth, is 
my settled^ conviction ! Where ^vdll you go, following 
the sun in its circuit round the globe, to find a govern- 
ment that better protects the liberties of its people, and 
secures to them the blessings we enjoy." '•' '•' " I think 
that one of the evils tliat beset us is a surfeit of liberty, 
an exuberance of the priceless blessings for which we are 
ungrateful.'' '■''■ '■''■ " I look upon this country with our 
institutions, as the Eden of the world, the paradise 
of the universe !" 

0, that the man who could utter such words as these, 
had had the courage to die, rather than abet and counte- 
nance a rebellion that has laid so large a portion of this 
" Eden of the world," this " paradise of the universe," 
waste with fire and sword. 

Turning from this now fallen eulogist to the object 



9 

of his panegyric, we find indeed that the great princi- 
ples that pervade and characterize it, that give it its 
" form and pressure," and control its action are those 
of the Word of God. All our institutions that are of a 
national character, grow out of the truth that a man is 
a man, made in the image of God, and therefore 
to he dealt with, with becoming reverence, kindness 
and tenderness. This principle never found national 
recognition until uttered in the memorable Declaration, 
that gave birth to us as a people. 

Other governments of all countries and ages, place 
themselves in direct antagonism with this doctrine by 
assuming a birth superiority in political right, privilege 
and office, of certain classes over others — a theory that 
in realization, dooms the masses to a subordination, 
that breaks the individual spirit, and impoverishes 
the household. 

Contrast now the principle for which, with that 
against which we are contending. What is the doc- 
trine of Secession, to say nothing of that institution, in 
whose interest almost exclusively this war is waged — 
what is Secession itself as a principle, or a right, but, as 
has been said with no less power than truth, " the 
essence of all immorality." The right of a subordinate 
to throw off at will, the bonds of legitimate supremacy is 
the right the angels exercised when they fell ; the right 
the sinner exercises when he defies his God. 

In politics, this right of a minority to set at naught 
2 



10 

<and override the will of the majority, if well-grounded, 
will still exist when any State or number of States has 
become independent, and in the bosom of the new 
government, the process may be repeated at will, and so 
on till some one man, the last possible minority, shall 
be the master, and the millions lie at his feet. Seces- 
sion is thus the highway, nay, the railway to Despotic 
Autocracy. And the struggle of the day is not so much 
a struggle of bayonets and cannon, as of these two great 
ideas — Despotism and Democracy. On the one side is 
the assertion, backed by gigantic armies, of the Euro- 
pean doctrine, which gives classes and races a birth- 
right superiority and dominion over races and classes ; 
and on the other side, a million-mouthed contradiction 
of that idea, coupled with the declaration that a man 
is a man, and that majorities must not, ought not, and 
in one instance at least, will not bow to a heady, 
overbearing minority. 

It was by the constitutional vote of the Nation that 
its government, for the time being was committed into 
the hands of the present administration. A minority 
has risen up, sword in hand against this determination 
of their more numerous brethren. 

And this is the question now under angry discussion 
on every battle-field — whether one man being equal to 
one man, ten men are not more than equal to five, and 
twenty millions to six millions. 

Now, with faith in these truths, derived from the 



11 

Word of God, what remains to us but to do our duty 
and be hopeful ? When since the world began, has God 
allowed a government founded on righteous principles, 
characterized by wise and righteous laws, while execu- 
ting well all the legitimate functions of government, to 
fall before the hand of violence ? Let us do our duty 
and be hopeful. Thought is mightier than Columbiads ! 
Principles are more resistless than bayonet charges ! 
Truth is powerful, and is prevailing and must prevail ! 
He then that believeth, will not make haste. He 
will not rise at midnight, and thrust his head from the 
window to look for baleful meteors in the sky. He will 
not go asking at the street corners after evil tidings, 
and turn pale at the cry of a news-boy. If some 
affrighted or designing pen, indite and publish startling 
rumors ; if an election go contrary to his wishes, or a 
favorite military commander is replaced by another, 
instead of losing his temper, courage and appetite, and 
"sighing like furnace," as if the death-knell of the 
Republic were booming in his ears, he will lift his eyes 
to heaven, and fix them on the great blue patches 
of Scripture principle, that give character to the con- 
test we are conducting, and trust in them and in God ! 
On the ground of this rational faith we plead for, 

II.— PATIENCE. 

1. Patience with our National Administration. On 
this point we speak with the more confident earnest- 



12 

ness, as in accordance with our views of duty at the 
time, we voted most cordially against the present in- 
cumbent in the Chief Magistracy, and as cordially dis- 
approved of nearly every appointment in his Cabinet, 
and hence we know that we are actuated by no tinge of 
partizan feeling. 

This administration may he chargeable with errors, 
many and grave. Still the present incumbents are there 
legitimately. They are there by operation of constitu- 
tional law. They are there providentially. They are 
" the powers that be," and they are " ordained of God," 
and they are " God's ministers, appointed for and 
attending continually upon this very thing." 

To fortify our patience, we should now and then 
recal the circumstances under which this administration 
came into power. 

Our ship was caught in one of the wildest storms that 
ever a nation weathered. Our dear old flag was torn 
to ribbons in the gale. A mutinous crew, with all 
arrangements long matured, first robbed, then scuttled, 
then abandoned the ship, while he who held the helm 
in a powerless hand, what time he should have lighted 
all her guns, and let loose all their thunders, could only 
find heart to say with poor, old Eli, "' Nay, my sons, it 
is no good report I hear of you !" And the old ship 
drifted into port, water-logged, without a sail, without 
a mast, without a cargo. And our handful of foreign 
friends cried out in sorrow, and our swarms of foreign 



13 

foes in exultcation — " Thy rowers have brought thee 
into great waters. The '^ south' wind hath broken 
thee in the midst of the seas. Thy riches and thy 
fairs, thy merchants and thy mariners, and thy pilots 
and thy caulkers, and the occupiers of thy merchan- 
dize, and all thy men of war that are in thee, and in 
thy company which are in the midst of thee, shall fall 
into the midst of the seas in this the day of thy ruin !" 

Such w^as the condition, and such the prospects of 
that old ship, when the present crew went on board. 
The new helmsman could as little divine when he took 
his inauguration oath, having been borne to the spot 
through ranks of bayonetted and loaded muskets, the 
sheen of burnished and loaded cannon in his eye, 
whither l]e might be borne by the angry, awful tide of 
events, as could Abraham of old, when he went out 
from Urr of the Chaldees, whither his God might con- 
duct him. And days passed, and nights dragged their 
slow length along, during which millions of patriots fell 
asleep to dream of horrors, and awoke to weep, and 
groan, and tremble. Weeks elapsed during any hour 
of which, it would not have surprised us to learn that 
the fate of the Republic had realized the worst fears of 
its friends, and the worst wishes of its foes. And we 
verily believe, that there are not ten men in a hundred 
throughout our northern land, who would not then have 
given their right hand to have been assured by an 
angel from heaven, that the present hour would have 



14 

found the nation in as favorable circumstances as it 
now enjoys. And we as confidently believe, that 
had the same angel depicted to the people in the 
revolted districts, the course of events from that hour 
to this, they would have tied millstones about the 
neck of their leaders and drowned them in the depths 
of the sea, ere they would have allowed the torch of 
death to send that first fatal ball at our flag on Sump- 
ter's walls ! 

And it were an injustice to our Government, and an 
injury to ourselves, to lose sight of what that Govern- 
ment has done. We had neither navy, army, arms, 
nor ammunition. We needed a million of soldiers, 
hundreds of cannon, and tons of tons of powder and 
ball, and supplies of clothing and provisions, that could 
hardly be estimated, and withal the greatest wisdom 
and delicacy in the management of our relations with 
foreign powers. 

Thus far we have esca23ed serious entanglement with 
these. The million of men have been brought into 
the field, armed and equipped. And instead of seventy- 
six vessels and seventeen hundred guns in our navy 
two years ago, we have now more tlian four hundred 
vessels, forty of them iron-clad, and more than three 
thousand guns afloat upon river and ocean. We say 
that since governments existed, no such work as this has 
been elsewhere accomplished in such a period of time. 

We repeat that we are here to eulogize, neither our 



15 

President nor his Cabinet; nor to apologize for any 
wrong act of any one of them. Nor is it our part to 
advise silence with reference to any act of official 
delinquency, in any incumbent of any office. But we 
plead for patience with our Government, with regard to 
measures and acts, until the authors and grounds of 
those measures and acts can be made known. We beg 
in behalf of our Government, for relief from the spirit 
of imjDetuous, intolerant censure, which often condemns 
when the event proves that there was no one to blame, 
and as often, when censure is due, lays the blame at 
the wrong door, and in either case, fortifies the Kebel- 
lion, weakens the arm of the Republic, prolongs the 
contest and multiplies its victims. 

2. And we plead for patience with the Providence of 
God. 

Impatience is not unnatural. And when great inte- 
rests are at stake, we are wont to allow suspense to rise 
almost to anguish. We desire sight for it rather than 
faith, that after all, division and anarchy, are not 
destined to drag us down to a lingering, national death. 
We cannot bear to find ourselves after two such years, 
still in suspense, and we go seeking for some soothsayer 
to unseal the lips of the future, that she may reveal to 
us in audible voice, the time of the end. But Faith is 
patient — and to patience with divine Providence, the 
marvellous Goodness of God exliorts us. 

It is true our recent history has been flecked with 



16 

light and shade. We have had successes and reverses 
— but withal, how sweetly the smiles of God have 
lighted up the land. What May ever saw orchards 
so decked with blossoms, as last May witnessed in our 
land ? What June ever saw a more luxuriant vegeta- 
tion ? What Autumn ever saw a more joyous Feast of 
Ingathering ? Our commerce, with an occasional fright 
and an occasional loss, found its way to the ends of the 
earth. The angel of health has spread its wings 
between us and pestilential blasts ; and rosy cheeks and 
bright eyes, still lighten up our household, and 
strong-limbed children and stalwart men, throng our 
thoroughfares. And while England, at peace with all 
the world, is at her wits ends to feed her starving chil- 
dren ; our own land, engaged in this gigantic war, sends 
ship-loads of provisions, a free gift to England's j^oor ! 

Thus, though far from forgetting the widows and the 
orphans, and the weeping parents, with which the 
Rebellion has filled the land, or that vast tide of soli- 
citudes that has ebbed and flowed, and driven sleep 
from so many pillows, yet in view of all the vast inte- 
rests at stake, the perils we have passed, the blessings 
we have enjoyed, and are still enjoying, we feel abun- 
dantly authorized to call for a spirit of calm, uncom- 
plaining patience, with the providence of God. 

Our lasiny flagrant sins and sliortcomings, loudly call 
us to patience. ^'■' Whom the Lord loveth he chasten- 



17 

eth." If God loves our nation, he will now and then 
visit it with chastisements, that he may disrobe it, 
at least in part, of the poisoned tunic of its sins. — 
Our Father, (we never doubted less than now) has 
ordained a long and glorious career for our nation, and 
he will not, that she go on her way, with unrepented 
sins weighing her to the earth, and bringing her to an 
early and an untimely senility and decrepitude. 

Hence he must administer chastisements. It might 
have come in drought and famine. It might have come 
in devastating pestilence. It has come in the form of a 
a vast, and cruel civil war. 

Let us be patient under it, and be more anxious to 
discover and repent of our sins, than to be too early 
freed from our sorrows. Every man, woman and child, 
has personal sins of which to repent. Every city is 
laden with its own sins. The Nation is a great sinner. 
Listen to the profanities that float on every breeze. 
God complains of us as of Israel — " And my name 
continually every day is blasphemed." See how drun- 
kenness staggers through our streets, and God calls as 
by the mouth of Isaiah — "Wo to the drunkards of 
Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower 
which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are 
overcome with Avine." Who that has seen the misery 
occasioned in a single family by the course of one mem- 
ber, as he passed to the inebriate's grave, and learns 
that many thousands of such graves are dug and filled 
3 



18 

every year, will consider it an extravagant declaration, 
that our war costs the land less heartache in a year, 
than we annually suffer from this fearful plague ? But 
why need we enumerate? Has not God a controversy 
with us, with reference to wrongs inflicted upon one 
another, wrongs upon the Red Indian, and wrongs upon 
the Black African ? 

And if God is to employ our nation, and is even 
now employing it in the erection of his kingdom, he 
will now and then chasten and correct, and thus 
purify us. 

Let us be patient then. God is doing a good work 
upon us, and a good work for us, when he afflicts us 
in disciplinary chastisements. And let us in the day 
of our trial, inquire after and repent of our sins, that 
the evil days may be shortened. 

Again — we may find a most eloquent appeal for 
patience, in the reflection that in and through these 
chastening sorrows, the life of the Republic is passing 
into a new development. 

Three great eras of the nation have already passed. 
The first witnessed the freezings and starvings, and 
Indian butcheries, in the early settlement of these 
shores — sorrows that wore much less penal than semi- 
nal — sorrows sent on those generation s,'=' much less as a 

* See some excellent remarks upon the significance of afflictive dispensations 
in an admirable article on "The War," attributed to the Rev. Dr. Hodge, in 
the Biblical Repertory for January, 1863. 



19 

punishment of their sins, than as tutors to fit them to 
become the parentage of a great nation. The second 
involved the bloody and protracted Revolutionary 
struggle — a struggle imposed upon the nation, not to 
punish it for its sins, but as a necessary means of usher- 
ing it forth to independence. In the third we emerged 
from the disorders and imbecilities of the old confedera- 
tion. And now, in divine Providence, a fourth arrest 
is laid upon us, checking a career of industrial and com- 
mercial prosperity and wild extravagance more corrupt- 
ing than war, and transmuting a money-making into an 
emphatically money-giving nation,''' that in another 
agony we may throw off for ever, certain heretical poi- 
sons that were eating like a gangrene and threatening 
our life. And if the men of the Revolution endured 
seven long years of distress and anguish, shame on us 
if we cannot endure seven long years more, to leave to 
our children a more perfect government, and a brighter 
national heritage than they left to us. We can endure 
twenty years of war with less suftering, than seven cost 
them. Cicero was fond of saying that in rescuing Rome 
from Cataline, he had done a larger service for his 
country, than the founders of the nation in erecting the 
commonwealth. And we harbor no shadow of doubt, 

* The estimated amount of voluntary contributions by our citizens to the 
government, in various ways since the war began, reaches the magnificient sum 
of five hundred millions of dollars ! Will some one now make an estimate of the 
reflex moral influence upon a people of such a contribution? 



20 

that they who carry the present struggle to a successful 
issue, will lie nearer the heart of posterity, than even 
the sages and heroes of the Revolution. 

Let us be patient under disasters. No great cause 
ever yet went onward with unvarying success. It is 
not God's way in human affairs. The husbandman 
must plough, and sow, and toil, long and hard before he 
can reap, and why should God fdl our national garners 
with so rich a crop, without adequate antecedent, 
toil and trial. He is a bold man, who will confidently 
affirm that any one of our victories has been more preg- 
nant with ultimate blessings to our nation than our de- 
feats. Beloved, we verily believe, that the day will 
come, wlien the devout and thoughtful patriot will give 
cordial thanks to Almighty God for our " Bull Run's," 
"Balls Blufi's," and even for the Rebellion itself! 

Let us be patient also with regard to the Fidure. 
Much solicitude has been expended upon the possibility 
of a reasonably cordial re-union of brethren exasperated 
by so long and so bitter strife. Brethren, this is not 
the next thing to be done ! This is now a question of 
theory and sentiment ; and we are not in condition to 
discuss it. Present solicitude upon this point is mere 
waste of thought, energy, and life. The great all-en- 
grossing duty of the hour, one that demands all we 
have of thought and energy, is to disarm the Rebellion ! 
Till this is done, the sword of Damocles is hanging over 
the nation's heart ; when this is done God will show us 



21 

what next to do !* Many an anxious inquiry has been 
made as to the probable continuance of the war; and this 
not only by parents whose sons, and hy families, whose 
fathers are gone down into the valley of conflict, but 
every interest of mercy and humanity joins in the in- 
quiry. To this question there is one very obvious 
answer : — This war will end just as soon as the govern- 
ment is reinstated in its rightful sway over the nation, 
and not one instant before ! An arrest of the war on 
any other condition, were the annihilation of all hope 
of peace till the nation has bled to death. 

But when may we hope for a triumphant termination 
of this awfully glorious conflict ? Just when God will ! 
He that believeth shall not make haste. In the dis- 
charge of a duty like that which He has assigned to us, 
that of winning the prize of true, free, safe, healthful 
government for the race — a race that since Nimrod 
usurped the first crown, has been the football of rulers 
who claimed the privilege of kicking it by divine right 
— we say that such a struggle for such a prize, we can 



* Such incidents as the following give us hints of touching significance upon 
this subject. A "Confederate" soldier coming upon a bleeding patriotic 
martyr as he lay upon a lost field, said, " You are wounded." "Yes." " Can 
I do anything for you?" "lam fearfully hungry." "Well, t have only an 
apple and a drop of cold coffee; you shall have them." And he kindled a fire, 
roasted the apple, warmed the coffee and served them to his bleeding foe with 
the tenderness of a brother ! This wounded soldier was borne to our hospital 
where he narrated the incident to the Chaplain. 



22 

carry on just as long as God may will and the need may 
exist ! Be patient and leave the future with God. 

And let us be patient with one another ! Some have 
turned an eye of apprehension toward apparent divisions 
in our own midst. An unbridled egotism, that makes 
each citizen not only a freeman in the State, but in his 
view the embodied wisdom of the State ; constituting 
him judge and censor of every official incumbent, and 
every governmental measure; disenchanting him of 
every trace of reverence for authorities and dignities ; 
utterly unfitting him for appreciating the Scripture 
doctrine that "the powers that be are ordained of 
God," and that magistrates are "ministers of God" — 
this proud, egotistical spirit, is one of the most common 
growths of free republican government, and it may in 
times of prevailing excitement and surging passion, be- 
come a vice, and a source of no little evil. And no 
doubt in particular instances the tongue and the pen 
may utter, and do utter sentiments that lacerate the 
patriotic heart ; sentiments which, should they become 
prevalent, would work a more terrible desolation in the 
land, than a pestilence and an invading army together. 

For instance, now and then, the threat has been 
heard of an organized attempt at a reconstruction of the 
nation upon the principle of excluding this portion or 
that from the new confederacy. A sentiment like this, 
is politically blasphemous and pestilential. Its preva- 
lence would be the utter ruin of the country. This 



23 

land is one — made for one government — and there is 
not a bleak rock on one of its monntains, nor a sandy 
island or peninsula, on one of its shores; there is not 
one square inch of its territory, that does not take hold 
of its very life! We can just as well spare Pennsyl- 
vania as we can South Carolina. We can just as well 
spare Ohio as we can spare Rhode Island. We can 
just as well spare the Mississippi, as we can spare the 
narrowest, shortest rill in which the farmer Avaters his 
horse, or the child wades and sails his tiny boat ! There 
is not a square inch of territory for which the nation 
had not better heroically die than yield it — for yielding 
it, would be to die most unheroically ! And we should 
say from our very heart of hearts, that he who should 
seriously propose and set himself to secure a dismember- 
ment of the Republic, even to the tip of its little finger 
— '• Let his right hand forget its cunning, and his 
tongue for ever cleave to the roof of his mouth!" 

But our refuge from all fear of serious and extreme 
division among our people ; of the undertaking of wild 
and suicidal measures, is first in God, and under God in 
the sound sense and intelligence of the mass of our 
citizenship. This last has rarely failed in the hour of 
need, and the first cannot fail. 

Let us be patient then with one another in the ex- 
pression of honest convictions. Let opinion meet with 
opinion. Let thought clash with thought. All extra- 
vagance and treason will meet its just rebuke ; the 



24 

atmosphere will be cleared by the storm, and God in 
his own good time, will make the bells of peace to call 
the nation to the house of joyous thanksgiving and 
praise. 

On the 23d of October, 1781, the midnight slmnbers 
of the good citizens of Philadelphia, were broken by a 
strange clattering of horses hoofs over the street pave- 
ments. A courier from the South had arrived. With 
breathless eagerness, he made his way to the house of 
the President of the Continental Congress on High 
street near Second. He knocked so vehemently, that 
the watchman was about to arrest him as a disturber of 
the peace. But the stranger replied — " I am from 
Yorktown — Cornwallis is taken." 

Instant measures were taken to communicate the 
thrilling news to all the watchmen in the city, and ere 
long the cry was heard echoing through all the streets — 
" Half past twelve o'clock and Cornwallis is taken !" 
Hundreds of windows flew up ! Thousands of heads 
were thrust out into the frosty air. The streets were 
thronged with citizens, and old Philadelphia thrilled 
from her heart to her extremities, with joyous, exult- 
ant emotion ! 

Let those who love the Eepublic have faith in their 
God, and faith in the eternal principles that underlie 
and pervade our Government ; and let them have 
patience with that Government, with its armies, with 
its navy, patience with divine Providence, patience 



25 

under disaster, patience as to the future, and when the 
clock of Heaven stril^es the appointed hour, the feet of 
another courier-bearing steed will ring upon these 
pavement stones, with another and more thrilling mes- 
sage from the South, telling us that wild delirium has 
given place to reason, mad passion to returning patriot- 
ism, and that the odious three-barred symbol of disu- 
nion and despotism lies buried beyond resurrection, 
while the stripes and stars wave in triumph over its 
grave ! 

And the time will come when every patriot will 
thank God that he witnessed and shared in this great 
and glorious struggle for the nation's life, and our 
noble soldiers will be prouder of the crippled arm or 
crutch, than courtier ever was of the stars of honor 
conferred by royal favor. 

"We are living, we are dwelling, 

In a grand and awful time ! 
In an age, on ages telling, 

To be living is sublime ! 

Hark ! the waking up of nations, 

God and Magog to the fray ! 
Hark ! what soundeth ? Is creation 

Groaning for its latter day ? 

Will ye play then, will ye dally, 

With your music and your wine ? 
Up ! It is Jehovah's rally I 

God's own arm hath need of thine I 

Worlds are charging, Heaven beholding ! 

Thou has but an hour to fight I 
Now Ihe blazoned cross unfolding. 

On ! right onward, for the right!" 



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BOOKBINDING 

Crantville Pa 

March April 198 








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